Tuesday March 14, 2017

I was going to ask why we are going through such extravagant means of developing or acquiring drone-specific weaponry, but apparently, it’s hard to nail a drone even with a trusty long-range rifle. They say that shotguns work the best, and one company has made shells that form a net when fired. Cool, now people can sue after getting hit by metal nets dropping out of the sky.

Compared to other dedicated anti-drone weapons, the SkyNet Mi-5 is relatively simple. Each shell contains five metal segments, each connected by a high-strength cord to a central point. "The five tethered segments separate with centrifugal force and create a five foot wide ‘capture net’ to effectively trap the drone’s propellers causing it to fail," ALS says on its website. The Air Force said it will fire the projectiles from its standard Remington Model 870 shotguns. For the cartridge to work properly, Airmen will need to install "choke tube" with rifling to the gun’s muzzle to get SkyNet spinning. The contract options also included a possibility of purchasing 100 of these add-on devices.